Saturday, June 5, 2010

One of our readers broke the news first of the theft of Mayor Mark Stodola's Ford Explorer from outside Copper Grill, where he was dining.

A City Hall insider wonders (and I've sent the mayor a question) if Stodola was following his long habit of not carrying his car keys. Instead, he often places them atop his left front tire. That's kind of like leaving your iPod or purse on the seat of your car. Mighty tempting.

UPDATE: The mayor didn't respond to our note, but he told the Democrat-Gazette yesterday that, while he'd left his keys in the car, he had recently stopped his practice of placing them atop the front wheel.

For the record, oldmaninthesea first reported this theft, subject of a Sunday page one story in D-G, at 9:34 p.m. Friday night on our open line.

Speaking of Donald Trump and in answer to a reader's question: There will be a women's march in Arkansas on Jan. 21, the day after inauguration, as well as the national march planned in Washington.

It was not even 24 hours ago that Sophia Said, director of the Interfaith Center; City Director Kathy Webb and others decided to organize a protest today of Donald Trump's executive order that has left people from Muslim countries languishing in airports or unable to come to the US at all — people with visas, green cards,a post-doc graduate student en route to Harvard, Google employees abroad, families. I got the message today before noon; others didn't find out until it was going on. But however folks found out, they turned out in huge numbers, more than thousand men, women and children, on the grounds of the state Capitol to listen to speakers from all faiths and many countries.

The State Police say Brett McCullough, 52, of Hot Springs, was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding a bicycle about 8:47 p.m. Wednesday on Highway 70 West (Airport Road) in Hot Springs.

Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Bart Virden of Morrilton, who narrowly survived attack ads by an outside partisan group supporting his opponent for re-election to a nonpartisan seat, doesn't intend to let the matter drop.

KFSM reports that the Benton County Election Commission will recount votes today in two squeaky state House races where incumbents are currently on top by scant margins.

The Arkansas Supreme Court continues to grapple, with divisions, on how to square new federal and state law on resentencing people who got life without parole sentences for capital crimes committed when they were minors.

Enjoy these photos from today's dedication and re-installation of a new Ten Commandments monument. The first iteration of the monument was installed last June but destroyed within the next 24 hours when it was rammed by a man in a Dodge Dart.